


California Never Felt Like Home To Me (Until I Had You On the Open Road)

by sweeterthankarma



Category: To All the Boys I've Loved Before Series - Jenny Han, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (2018)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-24
Updated: 2018-08-24
Packaged: 2019-07-01 17:59:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15779202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweeterthankarma/pseuds/sweeterthankarma
Summary: It’s summer, and Peter invites Lara Jean onto his family’s vacation to San Francisco a week before they go. She pokes fun at him because it’s so last minute and he’s always forgetting about things until right before they’re about to happen, but then she finds out that he’d only just convinced his parents to let them go alone, and now it’s entirely different.





	California Never Felt Like Home To Me (Until I Had You On the Open Road)

**Author's Note:**

> Title and inspiration comes from the song "Drive" by Halsey.  
> I’ve only seen the movie, so if any of the information I imagined about Lara Jean or Peter’s past is inaccurate let me know!

It’s summer, and Peter invites Lara Jean onto his family’s vacation to San Francisco a week before they go. She pokes fun at him because it’s so last minute and he’s always forgetting about things until right before they’re about to happen, but then she finds out that he’d only just convinced his parents to let them go alone, and now it’s entirely different.

She isn’t nervous, of course —  how could she be around him? —  but he’s her first boyfriend , her first  _ everything,  _ really and it all feels so new. It is and it isn’t, all at once, and she’s conflicted like always because if they ever get married someday, theoretically speaking, of course, how will they count their anniversaries? When will they tell their kids they started dating? All the other couples at school have specific relationship dates that they all flaunt in their Instagram bios, obnoxiously enough, and while they could say the day they kissed in the lacrosse field was the beginning of it all, that wouldn’t be accurate. They both know that whatever they had before that was just as real, even if they didn’t know how to address it.

She shouldn’t worry about this because they’re together now, and Peter doesn’t care about technicalities. She knows because when she’d scoffed something under her breath about cringey couples after seeing one too many Facebook posts, he’d kissed a trail all the way from her cheek  to the expanse of skin beneath her ear and murmured something about how it didn’t matter. They were together now, and they had a hell of a story on how they got there. 

Lara Jean likes to watch him drive. She feels safe with him, and sure, maybe a little impressed because he’s navigating the 505 better than she could ever dream of doing. He’s not even using Google maps, like she is, and she’s just in the passenger seat.

He’s telling her stories of past trips, how when he was little he hated the long car rides and didn’t think it was worth it just to go to a new place. Now, it’s his favorite part. He marvels at sports cars that pass them and mentions the new rims he wants to get just a little too often for her taste.

    “Tell me more about young Peter,” Lara Jean says, propping her elbow on the side of the door and resting her chin on her hand. She’s staring at him and she can’t help it.  _ He’s beautiful. _

She’s sure he notices, and she’s sure he doesn’t mind. 

    “Well,” he starts, reaching over to grab her left hand and intertwine it with his own. She’s protested about him driving with both hands before, and he’s a little surprised that she doesn’t now, especially as a Maserati whizzes past them, definitely not going the speed limit. 

    “You knew young Peter,” he says with a quirk of his eyebrows, and Lara Jean tips her head in defeat.

    “Yeah, but not the way I know you now.”

He smiles at this, agreeing, and eventually starts to talk more, after turning up the radio and singing along to a Ed Sheeran song. He doesn’t let go of Lara Jean’s hand, but she thinks that’s a good thing, because if he did she’d pull out her phone to record him. He’s a ridiculously good singer, but doesn’t believe her when she says so, time and time again. She’ll lay on his bed, doing nothing, just marvelling over his voice whenever he sings in the shower, and she falls harder every time. (Maybe one of these days she’ll send a recording of him to Simon Cowell or DJ Khaled or even Ed Sheeran himself. He’ll probably be mad, but she has a feeling it’ll pay off. He checks all the boxes to be the next viral sensation, anyways; maybe she should be jealous just thinking about that, but she isn’t. She knows he’s hers. She isn’t worried.)

He tells her about when he was five and wouldn’t eat anything that didn’t have peanut butter involved, even if that meant adding it to a ham and cheese sandwich. Lara Jean laughs for five minutes straight when he recalls how every time his mother gets mad at him for oversleeping or forgetting to do his laundry, he reminds her that he at least isn’t requiring that she buy peanut butter in bulk anymore.

She points enthusiastically at the first In-N-Out sign they see, demanding he pull over and stop, which he happily obliges. 

    “In-N-Out is overhyped, sure,” Peter says between bites of his burger after they’ve gone through the drive thru, “but that doesn’t mean it isn’t one of the best chains out there.”

Lara Jean gives him a look as she sips her drink. “I think you just contradicted yourself.”

He brushes her off with a vague hand gesture, getting distracted by the radio playing the  _ same  _ Ed song again. Lara Jean thinks if the circumstances were any different, she’d loathe the song by now, but he’s humming and she’s swooning again, helpless. This time, she does take a video of him. He sways along to the music, mumbling words and pointing at her as he eats his burger, and her laughter is quiet in the background. 

Somehow, they make it to San Francisco after spending less than eight hours on the road, and while both their backs are sore and they’re tired of sitting, they collapse into bed at their hotel and don’t end up sleeping for hours. 

It’s too late to be tourists and to watch anything decent on TV, but they keep talking and find that that’s enough.  _ More than enough,  _ Lara Jean thinks as she revels at the sight of Peter, sprawled across the bed, arm slumped against the pillows. His hair is mussed, partly from the wind but probably more so from her own doing, and she rolls closer to him just to keep touching it. There’s two beds in their room, but she knows they’ll only use the one. 

She hasn’t been ready to... _ do it  _ yet with him, for lack of a better term, and he’s not pressuring her, of course, but still, she thinks, this would be a pretty perfect time. Peter’s never been anything short of perfect, though, and every day has improved their relationship, their lives, their  _ love.  _ She knows whatever she’s feeling now will only be amplified even more tomorrow. There’s no rush.

They kiss for awhile, lazy and close and easy, and eventually she’s on his lap and his hands are up beneath her shirt, soft caresses anything but urgent. She burns everywhere he touches her, in a good way, and she’s awake, alive, aware of every move they make, together and apart. But when they’re horizontal again, her head on a pillow, the tiredness creeps up on them both and she yawns her way out of a kiss before whispering an apology. He chuckles.

    “Let’s sleep,” she murmurs against his cheek between kisses, and he doesn’t protest.

    “‘Kay,” he replies, and then after some quick fussing to both get under the blankets and share the mattress equally— they both have bigger beds at home, anyway— they sleep. 

  
  


    “So, tell me about young Lara Jean,” Peter says, continuing yesterday’s conversation through bites of pancakes the next morning at breakfast. They’re at a small diner in the Castro District, and the ambience around them is unlike anything Lara Jean has ever experienced before. Happy, inclusive, welcoming and warm, everyone is friendly and vibrant. She can’t stop smiling— the pancakes are really good, too, so that’s also a factor, of course— and neither can Peter.

    “Well,” she starts, “I’d always had this idea that someday I’d move to California. It was either stay in Oregon, find myself in Korea, or here, and I don’t even know why, really. Idealistically, it just always felt like home. I’d only been as far south as Eureka and seen the state forests, and I was too young to really take it all in. Then, when I was thirteen and we went to Hawaii, we stopped at Los Angeles for a three day layover. I was so excited and so sure it was going to be my favorite place in the world. ”

    “I remember you used to always wear a t-shirt with all the Hollywood stars on it.”

Lara Jean smiles, reminiscing. She still has that shirt, stuffed somewhere in a box under her bed of too small articles of clothing. She’d liked it, but she’d liked the idea behind it more. 

    “Yeah, it was my favorite,” she says. “I liked LA, I did, but it wasn’t like...an earth shattering experience like I thought it’d be. It didn’t make me feel like it could be home someday, instead it felt like the opposite. It was disappointing.”

Peter watches her intently as she speaks, only looking away to add more syrup to his plate.

    “Do you think there was any reason why?” he asks.

She shrugs. “I think I just expected more than there was. I didn’t even really know what I wanted, I just wanted to have a plan and know there was a place I belonged. Of course, I grew up watching Disney channel and idolizing all the characters and celebrities with their perfect LA lives. And I was so young, but I wanted stability, to know where I was going.”

Peter seems to understand this. He’s introspective, thinking, and Lara Jean doesn’t even recognize how much she’s clinging onto the conversation, waiting for what he’ll say next. She’s always surprised and she’s always impressed by whatever words come out of his mouth. He’s deeper and more complex than she’d ever imagined him to be before she really got to know him, and his mind is just as vibrant as the rainbow painted sidewalks outside.

    “You’ve always wanted stability,” is what he finally says, and she nods. “You’ve always wanted a plan.”

There’s a pause, and then he says, louder, “and I’ve never known you to not have one. You’ll figure it out, babe.”

It’s simple and reassuring and it feels true. While she’s sure he has more to say about himself and his own feelings, he doesn’t mention it, not now. It’s too sunny and beautiful of a day to talk about disappointments and worries, and that wasn’t the point of the conversation, anyway, they both know that. Still, she feels hopeful. She gets to explore in a brand new city for the first time, and it definitely doesn’t hurt that Peter is making a scene of taking her hand across the table and kissing the back of it, almost like a prince in all of the fairy tales she had grown up watching and dreaming about.

  
  


Their trip only lasts a few days, but Lara Jean doesn’t think she’s ever had more fun in her life. She’s sure that he’s broken a new record for the number of times he can make her smile in a day. Actually, she doesn’t know if she’s ever stopped smiling. 

Peter has to practically drag Lara Jean out of the hotel and into the car once it’s time to go home. She’s taken hundreds of pictures, most of which show Peter indulging in various desserts, usually chocolate, or tanning on the beach, effortlessly gorgeous as always. She doesn’t want to leave this place, or the happiness behind. She’s pouting like a kid and maybe she’s just overtired, but she feels like she could cry as they make their way out of the city limits. Peter notices.

    “You okay?” he asks her, and she sighs in response.

    “I don’t want to leave,” she admits. “This was the most fun I’ve had...potentially ever.”

Peter’s face softens at that, and he leans over to kiss her quick at the next red light.

    “Me too, Covey,” he mumbles against her lips. She brings a hand up to his hair, tracing her fingers along his jawline in the process, and she kisses him again until the person behind them honks. The light is green, and Peter mutters a curse before pulling away and driving again.

    “So you’re a fan of California now?” he asks, and Lara Jean nods modestly. He grins over at her when she does, and then they laugh at the hair in their faces when they roll all the windows down. 

    “I change my mind,” Lara Jean announces suddenly, and Peter turns the music down to hear her.

    “Hmm?”

    “I think California could feel like home to me,” she replies, and her words hang heavy in the air like a declaration. They both recognize it. For a split second she’s worried it’s too intimate, too honest or too soon, but Peter just smiles and squeezes her hand. He doesn’t need to say a word, she knows he feels the same. 

    “We’ll come back soon,” he says, and it feels like a promise.

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me about these cuties in the comments or on my Tumblr @sweeterthankarma.


End file.
